


And They Lived

by Ruuger



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Future Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-22
Updated: 2018-09-22
Packaged: 2019-07-15 14:19:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16064909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ruuger/pseuds/Ruuger
Summary: At the end of everything, Clara finds someone waiting for her.





	And They Lived

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for the Whouffaldi zine, but I ended up submitting another story there instead.

She'd left Ashildr behind a long time ago. Years, decades, or centuries ago, that she couldn't tell anymore. Time had no meaning in that second between heartbeats where she now existed. 

It was just her and the Tardis making their way across the universe, until the day came when she stepped out of the diner and instead of some exciting new planet she found herself looking at the burning ruins of Gallifrey at the end of everything. Where it had all began. 

She smiled to herself, accepting the inevitable. It was time to stop running. 

With a final silent goodbye to her Tardis, she closed the doors and turned to face the raven.

"I know you're there," she said.

For a moment there was nothing but the quiet whispers of the universe unravelling around her. Then the shadows shifted and a translucent shape, like a human made of glass, stepped into the light of the collapsing stars.

"We have been expecting you, Clara Oswald," it said.

"You're the Testimony."

"Yes."

She'd heard of them, of course. Rumours and stories about time travellers who would capture people at the moment of their death and store their memories inside glass avatars. She was fairly certain she had even seen them, watching and following her from a distance, waiting for the moment when she too would stop running. Sometimes, on days when she had felt the full price of immortality weighing on her shoulders, she'd even been tempted to track them down, to visit all those she'd left behind and then join them for the rest of eternity. 

And yet, as tempting as that option had seemed in her darkest moments, now that she was facing the inevitable, she found that she wasn't entirely comfortable with the idea of being shelved away for later use like a well-read library book.

She crossed her arms and leaned to the door of the Tardis. "What if I say no?"

The glass avatar let out a sound that could have almost been laughter. "We were expecting you to say that, so we have brought a gift for you, to ease your passing." 

As the avatar said those words, it stepped back into the shadows, and suddenly there he was. 

The Doctor. 

He was wearing a black coat and white shirt with the top button undone, his guitar slung over one shoulder and his eyes hidden behind his shades. During her travels she'd always done everything possible to avoid him, in all his incarnations, because she wasn't sure that she could have let him go a second time, to hell with the consequences. 

And now here he was, right in front of her. Looking exactly the same as on the day that she'd last seen him.

"You're not real," she whispered. She desperately wanted to run to him and pull him to a hug, but she could not believe that the Doctor she knew would ever have consented to becoming a xerox copy of himself. But maybe there was no way of avoiding it, of refusing the Testimony. Maybe even the most rebellious Time Lord had to stop running sometime.

The Doctor smiled at her. "I am a snapshot of my memories at the moment of our parting." When she started to object, he shook his head. "What are any of us, but stories told by others." He gestured with his hand at the destruction surrounding them. "We are standing at the end of time itself. Reality has no meaning here anymore. You died a billion billion years ago, and so did I." He shrugged, frowning. "Or at least I assume I did, seeing that I'm here now." 

She let out a laugh. "You're certainly just as much in love with the sound of your own voice as he was." 

The Doctor's smile didn't waver. "I'm real enough, Clara, and I can prove it to you."

He closed the distance between them, took off his shades and then leaned down. For the briefest moment she wondered if he was going to kiss her, and then he spoke, whispering to her the exact same words that shed told him in the cloisters. She felt tears prickling at her eyes, human emotions that she'd thought she'd left behind so many lifetimes ago. 

It had been a billion years since the last time she'd taken a breath but nevertheless she felt like she was suffocating, like the atmosphere around her had suddenly run out of oxygen. And maybe it was, maybe this was what dying felt like. But if that was the case, then there was something she wanted to do.

She reached to touch his face, and then slipped her hand behind his neck and pulled him down to a kiss. He was surprised at first, but then kissed her back, and she found herself wishing that she hadn't waited until now to do it. 

Finally she broke the kiss and took a step back, wiping away her tears with the back of her hand. "If it really is you, I wish we had more time."

He just smiled and took her hand between his hands. 

"We have all the time between one heartbeat and the next," he said, and brought her hand to his lips and kissed it. As he lowered her hands, he held her gaze, and then suddenly his eyes quickly flitted towards her Tardis before returning to her. 

She frowned, confused, and then it hit her. He'd said that he was a snapshot of his memories the moment they'd parted, except... except if he was, then how could he remember her? She raised her eyebrow in question, and he mirrored her expression before casting another quick look at the Tardis, the corners of his mouth twitching into a mischievous hint of a smile. 

"But how...?"

He leaned closer. "I'm the Doctor," he whispered. "Do you honestly think they could take all my memories, trap them in glass, and then expect me not to escape?"

She wanted to laugh, suddenly feeling more alive than she had in a thousand years. Instead, pulled him closer for another kiss. "I've missed you, you silly old man."

"I've missed you too, Clara Oswald." He squeezed her hand, holding her gaze. "Ready?"

She squeezed it back. "Always."

"Then run!"

And they did.

**Author's Note:**

> To be honest, I alwayd thought that the Testimony was a bit creepy, possibly because their MO was suspiciously similar to the Soul Hunters on B5.


End file.
